Sole Meuniere

  • Level: Easy
  • Yield: 2 servings
  • Total: 20 min
  • Active: 20 min
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Ingredients

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

4 tablespoons Clarified Butter, recipe follows

Four 2- to 2 1/2-ounce skinless, boneless sole fillets, preferably gray or lemon 

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 

3 tablespoons unsalted good European-style butter, cut into small pieces 

1 tablespoon capers, drained, optional 

Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tablespoons juice) 

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley 

Clarified Butter:

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter (see Cook's Note)

Directions

Special equipment:
cheesecloth
  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Place an oven-safe platter in the oven to warm.
  2. Spread the flour on a plate or pie dish. Heat the Clarified Butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper on both sides. Dredge the fish in the flour and shake off any excess. Once the Clarified Butter is hot, add the fish to the skillet and sear, occasionally basting the fish with the butter in the skillet, until golden brown, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Carefully turn the fish over and cook the other side until golden but the fish is still slightly springy to the touch, about another minute. (If the fish flakes easily, it's overcooked.) Transfer the fish to the warmed platter.
  3. Return the skillet to medium-high heat and add the European butter. Cook until it melts, then turns lightly browned and smells nutty. Add the capers, if using, and season with salt and pepper. Add the lemon juice—the butter will splutter—and swirl the skillet to incorporate. Spoon the sauce over the fish, then garnish with the parsley and serve.

Clarified Butter:

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Continue to cook until a layer of white milk solids floats to the surface and the butter becomes foamy. Lower the heat to medium and continue to gently boil. The milk solids will sink to the bottom of the pan. Once the boiling has stopped, pour the butter through a cheesecloth-lined strainer into a glass measuring cup or heatproof bowl to filter out the milk solids. Cover and store in the refrigerator.

Cook’s Note

Since this is such a simple recipe, be sure to use a good European-style butter for the best flavor. Sole meuniere, as Julia Child and Jacques Pepin cooked it on their PBS show, used sole that was skinned, trimmed and cleaned, but otherwise left whole on the bone. Julia preferred the fish completely skinned, but Jacques liked to leave on the scaled white skin (the fish's gray skin was removed). To make it easy to serve, we're making it with the fish already portioned into fillets. Dover sole, their preferred fish, is difficult to obtain, but gray and lemon sole are good substitutes.

Let's Get Cooking!

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Wendy from La Jolla

Absolutely delicious! Wouldn't change a thing. I found fresh, wild-caught Dover sole, but it isn't easy to find. I am sure there are other thin, white fish (as suggested in the prior reviews) which could be substituted. Thanks Jeff! You are so funny on The Kitchen. Love the mix of personality / food preferences. The kitchen has a great mix of personalities and you all genuinely seem to love each other.

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